Nickelodeon: Some of the Shows I Missed in the '90s

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. It's our first official winter weather day of the season, so I decided I'd come on here and talk about something I don't think I've ever talked about on the blogs. Nickelodeon. That magic channel that had American kids glued to their TVs in the '90s. More specifically though, I'll be talking about the shows I didn't see because they either didn't air up here in Canada or I just didn't know about them because they didn't air here until long after they'd ended in the U.S. So, let's get into it.

If you grew up in the '90s and lived in the United States of America, you remember this logo. It was on your TVs every day after school or on Saturdays. Here in Canada though, it doesn't hold as much meaning because unless you had satellite TV, Nickelodeon wasn't available here. Some of the shows aired here in Canada on YTV and Family Channel, but not all of them, and some aired later than they did in the U.S. Rugrats was the one I watched the most, as I talked about in my Rugrats post I did a couple of months ago. It's because of Rugrats that I even knew what Nickelodeon was, since that logo appeared at the end of each episode. So I thought I'd go through some of the shows that either didn't air here in Canada, or aired late enough in my life that I didn't know about them. 

First up is The Adventures of Pete & Pete, which is a sitcom about two brothers who are both named Pete. It aired from 1991 until 1996 in the U.S., however we didn't get it until 2000. It aired from 2000 until 2002 on Family Channel, but this was before I started watching Power Rangers on Family Channel and the majority of the shows I was watching were either on YTV or Teletoon or were on later at night like Boy Meets World, 7th Heaven, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Star Trek: Voyager or reruns of older shows like The Dukes of Hazzard and The Waltons. So I completely missed this show. I didn't even know about it because I wasn't watching Family Channel to see commercials for it. Which is something I think I'll be saying alot in this blog post.

Next is Doug. Let me be clear I have watched Doug. In fact, I used to watch Doug all the time. However, I don't remember ever seeing the first four seasons that aired on Nickelodeon from 1991 until 1994 and on YTV from 1995 until 1999. I watched seasons 5, 6, and 7, which aired on ABC from 1996 until 1999. However, I did NOT watch it on ABC either. At least, not initially. From 1995 until we moved in the summer of 1997, we watched a programming block on CJOH (the Ottawa affiliate of CTV) called BBS Master Control, which aired nothing but Disney animated shows from The Disney Afternoon, which was a two hour syndicated programming block that aired in the United States, and ABC. The host of Master Control for the years that my siblings and I watched it was Jennifer Beech, who had been a host on YTV from 1992 until 1995, known as PJ Jenn, co-hosting The Zone with PJ Phil and hosting the YTV Breakfast Zone very briefly just before she left to host Master Control. Disney's Doug was one of the shows that aired during Master Control along with Gargoyles, Aladdin: The Animated Series and many others. But I completely missed the original Nickelodeon version of Doug, because it started airing on YTV before I had regular access to the channel again, and by the time I returned to YTV in 1996 I was only watching it for Sailor Moon and reruns of The Woody Woodpecker Show, and shows that aired later in the evening such as Rocko's Modern Life and The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat. It's possible that I did watch the Nickelodeon version of Doug, I just don't remember doing so.

Next is The Ren & Stimpy Show. Yeah, I'm pretty sure we didn't get this show here in Canada until Teletoon debuted in 1997. Because I don't remember ever seeing any commercials for it until it was on Teletoon. 

This next one is REALLY weird because it didn't air here in Canada until 1999, even though the show ran from 1991 until 1994. That show is Clarissa Explains It All, starring Melissa Joan Hart. We didn't get it until Family Channel started airing it in 1999. It also only aired until 2001, so I don't know if Family Channel aired all 65 episodes across five seasons, or if they only aired the first two seasons, which had a total of 26 episodes or what. I just know we didn't get it in the early '90s, and I suspect we only got it when we did because of how popular Melissa Joan Hart was thanks to Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which was about halfway through its seven season run by the time Clarissa aired on Family Channel in 1999. Because I wasn't watching Family Channel by this point, I had no idea that Clarissa even existed. It wasn't until the last five years or so, when Sabrina was having attention paid to it again due to the Netflix series, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, that I discovered that Melissa had been on a show prior to the 1996 Sabrina Showtime TV movie airing. 

Next is The Angry Beavers. This is another one that I was aware of it being on YTV, but I actually don't remember ever watching it. 

Unlike The Adventures of Pete & Pete and Clarissa Explains It All, which both aired in the late '90s and early 2000s on Family Channel, Kenan & Kel never aired here in Canada. It didn't air on Family Channel and it didn't air on YTV. As far as Canadian kids were concerned, Kenan & Kel didn't exist. Which is really weird because both All That and The Amanda Show both aired on Family Channel in the early 2000s. The thing is, in addition to all of the American shows we get, we have our own shows that need to be included on the various TV schedules, so we end up not getting every show the American networks, cable channels, and streaming services air. 

In extension of Kenan & Kel, the one Nickelodeon Original Movie that I don't ever remember seeing commercials for is Good Burger. I don't know if that's just because Kenan & Kel didn't air here, but I never saw commercials for Good Burger on TV when it was about to come out in 1997. 

I remember seeing commercials for Aaahh!!! Real Monsters on YTV during Animorphs and Radio Active, but I never actually watched an episode.

KaBlam! is another show I didn't watch, but that we did get on YTV. We got it two years after its original American debut. I honestly don't remember this show. I think I saw it on the "Coming Up Next" screen, but I never saw actual commercials for it. 

Rocket Power is another show I didn't watch when I was a kid. It's also one I don't remember ever seeing anything for on TV either. It aired on YTV from 2000 until the show ended in 2004, but by this time I was only watching YTV for certain things like episodes of Sailor Moon S (Season 3), Sailor Moon SuperS (Season 4), Digimon Adventure 02 (season 2), and Digimon Tamers (Season 3) and that's basically it. Radio Free Roscoe was on Family Channel and Animorphs and Radio Active were over, so I wasn't watching very much on YTV by that point. 

The same thing goes for As Told by Ginger. I'd never even heard of it until I started listening to a podcast called Old School Lane, as one of the hosts of that podcast, Patricia, is a huge fan of that show. It aired on YTV from 2001 until 2004, though the show ran on Nickelodeon from 2000 until 2006, so we didn't get the whole show on TV. 

After this era, Nickelodeon shows started airing on par with Nickelodeon itself, as we got shows like Zoey 101, iCarly, and Victorious not too long after they all started their runs on Nickelodeon. Eventually Canada would get its own Nickelodeon branded channel in 2009, though most Nickelodeon shows continued airing on both Family Channel and YTV.

That my friends is it for me for today. I just wanted to talk about some of these shows that I've heard people talking about online, but never got to experience for myself being that we either didn't get them, I missed them due to not having access to the channels they were on, or I just wasn't interested in them. I will be back tomorrow most likely as I'm almost finished reading Isard's Revenge. So until then have a great afternoon and I will talk to you all later. Take care.